ARTPIX Notebooks

BILLY SULLIVAN
Photographs

DVD + CD-ROM; 2002, reissued 2006

 

 
Born in Brooklyn, Billy Sullivan attended New York’s High School of Art and Design and then the School of Visual Arts during which time he began photographing his fellow artists, family and friends from the art, nightclub and fashion worlds. Over 30 years later, Sullivan has accumulated thousands of images that he views as a visual diary of his life, characterizing the people and things around him. From this archive he creates paintings, pastels and ink drawings, primarily portraits and still lifes, Part of a downtown scene from 1968 to the present, Sullivan cites the influence of Andy Warhol on his approach to art, aesthetically and socially.

The ARTPIX DVD and CD-ROM document Sullivan’s photos over 30 years. An image archive is accompanied by an audio interview with the artist by Mark Magill, founder of Bomb Magazine, and an essay by The New Yorker art critic Peter Schjeldahl.

Billy Sullivan, another artist included in the Whitney Biennial, is known for subjective portraits of friends and family that, many say, anticipated Peyton’s more nostalgic work by at least two decades. All are based on his own photographs – slides that he projects onton his canvas to start, and then onto the wall beside it as he works. An image from one of Sullivan’s photographic “sketchbooks” might become a painting decades after the fact. “I never know what I’m going to use until the day I use it,” he says. “And then the painting takes on a life of its own. That’s what’s good about photographs. They give you the freedom to figure out what you want.”
                                          Linda Yablonsky
                                          “Slides and Prejudice”
                                          ARTnews, April 2006


DVD Playable in all regions

CD-ROM Minimum System Requirements:
Windows: 300 MHZ Intel Pentium processor or compatible;
64MB installed RAM; Microsoft Windows 95, 98, NT4, 2000, XP;
800 x 600 monitor with millions of colors;
Windows-compatible sound card and speakers;
16x CD-ROM drive
MAC: 300 MHZ PowerPC processor or later;
64 MB installed RAM; Mac OS X;
800 x 600 monitor with millions of colors;
16x CD-ROM drive

US$20

Available on amazon.com